Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect builds on Raspberry Pi silicon

The board builds on the Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller and is described by Arduino as “a small board with big features”, working within the tiny footprint of the Nano format.

Nano RP2040 Connect spec

Powered by the RP2040’s dual-core Arm Cortex M0+ clocked at 133MHz, it features MEMS sensors from STM (a 9-axis IMU and a microphone), 264KB of SRAM, 16MB of flash memory (to provide space for code, data storage and over-the-air updates), and Arduino has also kept features such the versatile u-blox NINA WiFi and Bluetooth module.

Its architecture enables people to use the RP2040 chip with the Arduino ecosystem (IDE, command line tool, libraries, etc) with full support for the RP2040 software ecosystem.

Weighing 6g and measuring 43.18mm x 17.78 mm, it’s priced at €22 (excluding VAT).

You can view the schematics online (PDF).

The Pi and the Nano

Eben Upton and the Raspberry Pi team had already shared their plans for the RP2040 with the Arduino team, who welcomed the chance to build their own Arduino-shaped offering.

At the time, Massimo Banzi and Fabio Violante (Arduino co-founder & chairman and CEO, respectively) wrote:

“‘Raspberry and chips,’ not something you’d like to eat but in the world of silicon it’s actually a great combination. Eben Upton recently shared with us Raspberry Pi’s exciting vision for a revolutionary product that they were working on: a microcontroller, the RP2040, based on Raspberry Pi silicon.”

“The news was both disruptive and exciting at the same time. At Arduino, we love to put our hands on innovative technologies, micros, sensors and all the building blocks that allow us to fulfil our mission of making technology simple to use for everyone. The curiosity was growing and a few weeks later we were already tinkering with the initial development tools. The processor is a very intriguing beast – it’s a dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller with fairly sophisticated architecture.”